[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.J., TENN., ARK., OKLA., NEB.

[Rick Halperin]

July 30



TEXAS:

Does This Man Deserve to Die?----Jeffrey Wood was sentenced to death under the 
Texas law of parties. But should someone who didn't pull the trigger be 
executed?


A rally for Jeffrey Wood was held outside of the Texas Governor's Mansion on 
July 23, 2016.

Jeffrey Wood and Daniel Reneau had only known each other for a couple of months 
when, on the morning of January 2, 1996, Wood waited in the car as his new 
friend entered a Texaco station in Kerrville. When Wood, a 22-year-old with no 
prior criminal record, heard gunshots, he went inside the store to find the 
attendant, Kris Keeran, shot dead. Wood says that Reneau then pointed his 
.22-caliber handgun at him and forced him to steal the surveillance video and 
drive the getaway car.

Witness reports led police to Reneau and Wood, and the pair was arrested the 
next day. Reneau, who confessed to the crime, was convicted of capital murder 
in 1997 and sentenced to death. He was executed 5 years later, in 2002. Wood 
didn't pull the trigger, but prosecutors tried him for capital murder under the 
Texas Law of Parties, which holds that someone can be held liable for an 
offense committed by another person. A jury found Wood responsible for either 
intending or anticipating the murder Reneau committed and sentenced him to 
death. His execution is scheduled for August 24, 2016.

Both Wood';s family and his lawyer have long maintained that his trial was 
flawed from beginning to end. A jury first found Wood incompetent to stand 
trial, and he was committed to a psychiatric institution. Less than 3 weeks 
later, Wood was determined competent by a psychiatrist to stand trial. After he 
was convicted, he tried to represent himself during his sentencing, but the 
judge denied that request, effectively finding him mentally incompetent to do 
so.

Lucy Wilke, who prosecuted Jeffrey Wood in his 1998 trial, writes via email, 
"He did not pull the trigger, but he was definitely the ring-leader [of the 
robbery]." She confirms that Wood's lawyers did not present any mitigating 
evidence and that they didn't cross-examine state witnesses during the 
punishment phase of his trial. "The reason for that was because Wood 
specifically, on the record, instructed his 2 very experienced and competent 
attorneys not to present any evidence or cross-examine any State witnesses," 
Wilke writes.

"Unfortunately, even though the judge found him incompetent to represent 
himself, nobody stopped the proceeding to inquire as to his competency to stand 
trial at that point or to make these irrational decisions," counters Jared 
Tyler, who took on Wood's case in 2008. "I believe Wood was incompetent to make 
the decision not to defend himself. It was irrational and in line with the 
evidence on which a jury had previously found him incompetent to stand trial." 
Tyler adds, "I've never seen a case like Mr. Wood's, in which a person has been 
executed or will be executed in which there was no defense at all on the 
question of death-worthiness."

And it is precisely this - the question of death-worthiness - that should be 
seriously considered in Wood's case.

Wood has an IQ of about 80, which is below average. According to school and 
psychological records, he has always had trouble processing information. At 
home he was severely beaten with a razor strap for his poor grades, and in 
school he craved attention. When he was 12, a psychologist noted his 
hyperactivity, impulsiveness and short attention span. He also described Wood's 
anxiety and tension, his poor grooming and hygiene, as well as his 
"exceptionally poor judgment" and his "faulty reasoning and reality testing." 
In an affidavit to the state, his father wrote that Wood had problems planning 
for the simplest things and that "[w]hen he was small, he would take the blame 
and the punishment for something that another child had done so he would seem 
to fit in." Wood was put in a Special Ed program and was never able to catch up 
with his classmates. In his early 20s, he fell in with the wrong crowd. It was 
easier for him to be around people with whom he didn't have to compete 
intellectually. This is where Daniel Reneau, a 20-year-old homeless drifter 
with an extensive criminal history, came into the picture.

"Mr. Wood was very vulnerable to the influence of Reneau," Tyler says, adding, 
"[Wood] is the kind of person who will just acquiesce to questions of 
authority. He is a boy in a man's body. Because of his psychological and 
intellectual impairments, he does not understand the legal and other 
implications of what he says. He is also not a reliable historian. I believe 
Mr. Wood to be incompetent."

Many states have laws comparable to Texas's Law of Parties, but few apply them 
to the death penalty; fewer still have actually executed people who didn't 
directly cause someone else's death. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 
1976, only 10 individuals who didn???t directly kill the victim have been 
executed, 1 each in Florida, Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Missouri, and the 
remaining 5 in Texas. What sets these cases apart from Wood's is that most 
capital defendants were present during the murder, sometimes even fired shots 
or participated in torturing the victim.

"What you have is a statute that allows someone who is a party to be sentenced 
to death under what I believe is a lesser burden than being the actual 
triggerman," says Tim Cole, a law professor at the University of North Texas 
and former district attorney of the 97th district. "I think there is a problem 
with that. These days, defense attorneys are put under a microscope. This kind 
of case would not be tried as a death penalty case in most places, probably not 
even here in Texas."

Few people know that the death penalty can be applied when someone is convicted 
under the Law of Parties - and among those who do, it has long been a 
contentious issue. In 2009, Jeffrey Wood's sister, Terri Been, and a group of 
advocates from the Texas Moratorium Network came close to having a bill passed 
by the state Legislature that would have limited the death penalty as a 
sentencing option under the Law of Parties. The Texas House of Representatives 
approved the bill, but Rick Perry, who was governor at the time, threatened to 
veto it if it went through the Senate. It will be reintroduced in the next 
legislative session, in January 2017.

But let's give the law as it stands now the benefit of the doubt: If Wood 
didn't suffer from emotional and intellectual impairment, one could potentially 
argue that he should have been able to anticipate that Reneau would murder 
Keeran. But even then, the Supreme Court has held that the death penalty "be 
limited to those offenders ... whose extreme culpability makes them the most 
deserving of execution." The death penalty is reserved for "the worst of the 
worst," according to the Supreme Court. If Wood wasn't present for the 
shooting, is he equally responsible as Reneau for Keeran's death? Is an 
intellectually impaired man who drove the getaway car the worst of the worst? 
Would a prosecutor seek the death penalty in Jeffrey Wood's case today?

"If I had this case to make a decision on today," wrote Wilke, who is an 
assistant district attorney in Kerrville, "I would make the same decision." But 
had Wood been tried today, it is unlikely he would be sentenced to death. In 
1999 juries \sent 38 people to death row; in 2015 and 2016 combined, they 
condemned just 5 new individuals to death, none of them under the Law of 
Parties.

Wood's lawyer and family are now seeking clemency, but could it be granted? 
Clemency is rare but not entirely unheard of. Since the death penalty was 
reinstated, 280 death sentences have been commuted on humanitarian grounds, 
often because of possible innocence, but also because some governors considered 
the death sentence disproportionate to the crimes the prisoners were convicted 
of, or because they acknowledged a "disturbing racial pattern." (Almost 42 % of 
all people on death row are black, compared to roughly 12 % in the general 
population. Wood is white.)

In Texas only 2 death row inmates have been granted clemency since 1976. (The 
state has executed 537 people and counting in that time, more than any other 
state in America.) In 1998, Governor George W. Bush commuted alleged serial 
killer Henry Lucas's sentence to life without parole, citing possible 
innocence. Lucas died in prison in 2001. In 2007, Rick Perry, under whose 
tenure 319 individuals were killed, spared the life of Kenneth Foster who, like 
Wood, was sentenced to death under the Law of Parties.

Since he was sworn in on January 2015, Governor Greg Abbott has not granted a 
single clemency. 19 executions have taken place during his time in office, and 
7 more death-row inmates are scheduled to die by the end of October.

"The commutation process in Texas has been criticized as being virtually 
non-existent, and that has not changed significantly from Governor Bush to 
Governor Perry to Governor Abbott," says Robert Dunham, director of The Death 
Penalty Information Center and former capital defense attorney. Yet, Dunham 
says, there has been a remarkable change in public opinion on capital 
punishment. Today 61 % of Americans favor the death penalty, compared to 80 % 
in 1994, according to a recent Gallup poll.

In general, people are more skeptical than ever of the variables that factor 
into death sentences. "The single most likely fact that determines whether you 
face the death penalty is what county did the offense take place in and what's 
the prosecutor's view about the death penalty," Dunham says. "When you look at 
the crimes committed by people who were sentenced to life and the crimes 
committed by people who were sentenced to death you can find very little 
difference between the 2. There's more and more evidence that the death 
sentence has been administered arbitrarily and unfairly." Dunham adds, "And it 
does not make the public safer. There is no evidence that the death penalty 
deters."

Wood's chance for life now rests on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and 
on Governor Abbott, who together have the power to commute his sentence. Wood's 
clemency application is due by Wednesday, August 3, 2016, three weeks before 
his scheduled execution. The TBPP releases its recommendation to the governor 
48 hours before the scheduled execution. If a majority of the board recommends 
clemency, the governor can grant a commutation of Wood's sentence to life in 
prison or a 1-time, 30-day reprieve of execution.

"Mr. Wood understands that his execution is looming but he has difficulties 
processing why it is happening to him," his lawyer, Jared Tyler, says. "He 
doesn't understand why the state is trying to kill him." In the past Wood has 
claimed that his death sentence was tied to a conspiracy by the Freemasons. In 
2008, Wood's bizarre statements during trial and in prison prompted a federal 
judge to stay his last execution.

Even supporters of the death penalty, which is supposed to be reserved for the 
worst of the worst, should recognize the limits of relying on the flawed and 
arbitrary procedures of yesteryear to kill a penniless man with reduced 
intellectual capacities. This case is an opportunity for the Texas Board of 
Pardons and Paroles and Governor Abbot to be empathetic and morally brave, to 
examine past shortcomings and to save Jeffrey Wood's life.

(source: Op-Ed; Sabine Heinlein is a freelance journalist and author----Texas 
Monthly)

********************

Texas recorded almost 7,000 deaths in custody since 2005


According to statistics made available by the University of Texas at Austin, 
nearly 7,000 people have died in police custody or in prison in Texas since 
2005. The information is contained in an online database published by the 
school's Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis (IUPRA).

The Texas Justice Initiative was created by Amanda Woog, a postdoctoral fellow 
in IUPRA. The data set spans 11 years and contains interactive features, 
including the names, ages, demographics, time and cause of death.

The release of the data comes amid a relentless campaign by the media to 
delegitimize protests against police violence in the wake of the shootings of 
police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. However, it further substantiates 
the case that the systematic and endemic brutality on the part of the police 
against the US population is on the rise.

According to the latest figures available, police have killed 551 in the US so 
far this year. Virtually no one has been held accountable for this toll. This 
includes officers in Baltimore involved in the death of Freddie Grey, who have 
now been cleared by the prosecutor's office.

According to the University of Texas study, 6,913 people died in state custody 
in the state between 2005 and 2015, an average of 628 per year. Of those 
deaths, 1,900 were individuals who had never been charged with a crime. 68 % of 
deaths occurred in prisons.

Significantly, 1,118 people died in police custody before booking. Of those, 
562 deaths were classified as justifiable homicides, a catch-all category that 
includes victims of police violence. Another 16 % were classified as suicides 
and 7 % as accidental injury. 90 % of these victims had not been charged with 
any crime. And deaths in police custody are rising. The year 2015 saw the most 
deaths in custody, with 683 fatalities.

Justifiable homicide was the leading cause of nonnatural death for 
African-American and Latino men, accounting for 30 and 34 % of nonnatural 
deaths respectively. Suicide was the leading cause of nonnatural death for 
white males, accounting for 411 deaths since 2005. According to the database, 
41 % of those who died in jails had been in custody for 7 or fewer days.

Altogether 772 people, 11 % of the total, died from suicide; 275 (4 %) died 
from alcohol or drug intoxication and 255 (4 %) from other reasons.

While whites made up 31 % of the Texas prison population they accounted for 42 
% of prison deaths. 90 % died of "natural causes," but the median age of those 
who died was far lower than the 72-year life expectancy of the average Texan.

The huge fatality rate points to the extreme brutality of the criminal justice 
system in the United States, where those accused of crimes, mostly poor and 
working class, are treated with cruelty and indifference. Texas in particular 
is known for its harsh treatment of prisoners.

The state carries out more executions than any other US state. According to the 
Death Penalty Information Center, Texas has carried out 537 executions since 
1976 with a current death row population of 263. Between 2005 and 2015, the 
time of the study, the state executed 195 people.

According to the Sentencing Project, Texas has a prison population of 158,000, 
with a prison incarceration rate of 584 per 100,000 people. Another 66,000 are 
held in jails.

Jennifer Laurin, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin spoke 
with the World Socialist Web Site Friday about the Texas Justice Initiative. "I 
am proud of the work that has gone into this project and that the University of 
Texas can lay claim to this important initiative," she said.

"I think it is an extremely significant project that contributes to the 
understanding about police use of force and deaths in custody.

"The state of Texas required after the last legislative session that reports be 
submitted on deaths in custody to the attorney general's office. It is unusual 
for police departments to make that data available. The contribution of the 
Texas Justice Initiative was to make that data usable. What this does is render 
it comprehensible to researchers and the public who want to know what police 
departments are doing."

By way of contrast she pointed to the Obama administration's open data 
initiative. "It is useless," she said. "It is not in an intelligible format."

She said that, from her experience, obstacles to the prosecution of law 
enforcement personnel relating to deaths in custody were difficult for 
plaintiffs or prosecutors to overcome. "The existence of more data can create 
leverage," she added, "especially if you can see a consistent uptick over 
time."

In a recent highly publicized case, Sandra Bland, a vocal opponent of police 
violence, died in an East Texas jail in July 2015 under mysterious 
circumstances. According to the official version of events, she used a trash 
bag to hang herself in her jail cell. A few days earlier police had arrested 
her in a brutal manner, without cause, following a traffic stop. Her death was 
included in the total of 1,111 who died in jail during the time covered by the 
study and is listed as "suicide."

Bland's family, however, rejected the possibility that she committed suicide. 
Whatever happened in that Texas jail cell, the police are ultimately 
responsible. The harsh treatment meted out to Bland is not atypical.

According to a report, in the 17 days following Bland's death another 4 black 
women died in police custody in states across the US. Most had been in jail for 
2 days maximum, held on minor charges like shoplifting.

Researchers compiled the data used in the IUPRA study from figures reported to 
the Texas attorney general's office. The only other state where similar data 
has been compiled appears to be California. According to those figures 684 died 
annually in police custody between 2005 and 2014, about the same annual number 
as Texas, although the population of California is 50 % larger (38 million) 
than the population of Texas (26 million). Of the 6,837 deaths in custody in 
California, 984, 14 %, were at the hands of law enforcement officers.

(source: World Socialist Web Site)






NEW JERSEY:

Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick calls for NJ to reinstate death penalty


A state lawmaker is calling for New Jersey to reinstate the death penalty for 
certain crimes.

Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick is calling for New Jersey to bring back 
capital punishment in the wake of the recent murders of police officers across 
the country.

Bramnick issued a statement calling for the death penalty's return for 
"predators that shoot and kill a police officer."

(source: news12.com)






TENNESSEE:

Trial set for killing of toddler


An Oak Ridge woman is expected to face a jury this fall for the 2011 abuse and 
murder of her granddaughter, a toddler. The death penalty case is expected to 
get underway during the week of Sept. 19.

Valerie Stenson, 51, formerly of 208 Teller Village Lane, Oak Ridge, was 
indicted in 2012 on 5 separate charges in the April 2011 death of Manhattan 
Inman, age 2 1/2, while she was in Stenson's custody. The 5 charges are 
1st-degree murder and 4 charges of aggravated child abuse or neglect.

Stenson has been in the Anderson County jail since March 2012. She is being 
held on $1,075,000 bond.

Information filed in Anderson County Criminal Court alleges that between April 
15, 2010 and April 16, 2011, Stenson abused and tortured Manhattan and her 3 
natural children. Stenson reportedly told the children she was especially hard 
on Manhattan because she was possessed by a demon and that Stenson was married 
to God.

Stenson allegedly required that the children participate in "extensive Bible 
study, prayers and punishment." The court documents called the punishment the 
children received from Stenson "excessive," such as standing all night long for 
spilling a drink.

"The punishment was continuous and systematic, rising to abuse and torture," 
the documents said.

The 3 surviving children, who were older than Inman, reportedly told officers 
that Stenson would abuse and torture all 4 children afterschool daily. This 
action was reportedly done as punishment for real or imagined misbehavior.

Stenson's actions allegedly included forcing the children to stand all night 
with their arms outstretched or their hands on their heads. The children were 
reportedly left on their knees for extended periods of time without food, 
according to the court documents. They also allegedly reported "being hit with 
a ruler on their hands until bruised, being hit with a belt and being smacked 
or punched by the defendant, their mother."

Additionally, Manhattan was reportedly at times made to sit on "the potty" from 
the time she woke until bedtime, or made to stand with the other children. The 
older children reportedly told investigators that to punish her, Stenson would 
deprive Manhattan of food and then give her peanut butter and crackers "to make 
her more thirsty." Then, Manhattan was given vinegar to drink to quench her 
thirst.

One child reportedly told investigators that Stenson would pour water on 
Manhattan's head in the bathtub to get her to stop screaming. On the night of 
the toddler's death, Stenson allegedly had the other children help bind 
Manhattan from "head to toe in bandages and tape, not breathing." The autopsy 
said the cause of Manhattan's death from the autopsy was suffocation, 
malnutrition and dehydration.

"Evidence discovered in the death investigation revealed a pattern of abuse 
culminating in the smothering death of the child," according to the court 
documents.

The documents also said 1 of the older children expressed regret for "carrying 
out the orders of the defendant involving things done to Manhattan and for 
failing to get help for her."

In March 2012, The Oak Ridger reported on Stenson's arrest and Anderson County 
District Attorney General David Clark's decision to seek the death penalty 
against Stenson. Those articles also identified Stenson as Inman's grandmother.

"I reached this decision (to seek the death penalty) considering all the 
factors and after careful review and reflection," Clark said in a March 2012 
news release.

The Oak Ridge Police Department investigated the case after the toddler was 
found unconscious and not breathing by a family member. She was pronounced dead 
at Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge and an autopsy was performed at the 
University of Tennessee Medical Center at Knoxville.

The autopsy findings in the court documents reported, in addition to the causes 
of death, "injuries consistent with sexual assault, acute and chronic."

The jail's website listed no prior charges against Stenson.

(source: oakridger.com)






ARKANSAS:

3rd attorney appointed to assist with Bella Vista murder case


A 3rd attorney has been assigned to the defense team of a Bella Vista man 
accused of killing his 6-year-old son last year.

George Morledge of Little Rock will assist Jeff Rosenzweig and Bill James in 
representing Mauricio Torres of Bella Vista.

Torres, 46, and and his wife Cathy Torres, 45, are charged with capital murder 
and 1st-degree battery. The 2 will be tried separately and prosecutors plan to 
seek the death penalty in both cases.

The Torreses are being held without bond in the Benton County Jail.

Maurice Isaiah Torres was pronounced dead at an area hospital March 29, 2015. A 
medical examiner determined the boy suffered chronic child abuse and his death 
was from internal injuries caused by rape, according to court documents.

Mauricio Torres was set to go on trial Aug. 22, but Circuit Judge Brad Karren 
granted a delay until Nov. 1.

The delay is because of a medical issue with Rosenzweig, who recently told the 
court he had been diagnosed with acute deep vein thrombosis and has blood clots 
in his leg. Rosenzweig said he has been placed on blood thinners and his health 
prevents him from traveling.

Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecutor, objected to the delay, but he also 
requested Karren assign a third attorney so the trial wouldn't have to be 
delayed again if Rosenweig is still experiencing health problems.

Gregg Parrish, executive director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, 
wrote Karren that Morledge had been assigned to the case. Parrish told Karren 
that Morledge meets the requirements to handle capital cases where the death 
penalty is sought.

Cathy Torres was supposed to go on trial Nov. 1, but her trial has been 
postponed. A new trial date hasn't been scheduled.

Mauricio and Cathy Torres could each be sentenced to life imprisonment without 
parole or the death penalty if convicted of capital murder. They face from five 
to 20 years if convicted of 1st-degree battery.

(source: Democrat Gazette)






OKLAHOMA:

Oklahoma Hired A New Warden After Botches, But Considered Execution Experience 
Irrelevant


After a string of execution mistakes and resignations, the state is replacing 
the personnel key to carrying out the death penalty in Oklahoma. But state 
officials say they view execution experience as "immaterial" in the hiring. 
posted on Jul. 29, 2016, at 11:16 a.m.

After a grand jury investigation found carelessness, secrecy, and ignorance led 
the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to multiple botched execution attempts, 
a department spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that a new prison warden's 
execution experience was "immaterial" to his selection for the job.

Oklahoma officials pointed to no experience in the new warden's past with 
executions, and BuzzFeed News has been unable to find any evidence that the new 
warden has any experience with carrying out or overseeing death sentences.

On Wednesday, corrections head Joe Allbaugh, himself new to the position, 
announced the selection of Terry Royal to run the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. 
Both the warden and the director have many responsibilities under the state's 
current execution procedures.

Neither Allbaugh or Royal appear to have any experience with executions.

When asked if Royal had any experience carrying out executions, a corrections 
spokesperson responded that "[t]he execution question is and was immaterial to 
his hiring."

Royal, who most recently ran the Lake Correctional Institution in Florida, has 
25 years of corrections experience - but none in any prison that had 
responsibilities for carrying out executions.

Royal's appointment will still have to be approved by the Oklahoma Board of 
Corrections, which will meet in September. The Board is also expected to 
discuss the grand jury's findings at the meeting.

Asked why the department believed Royal's experience or lack thereof was 
"immaterial," spokesperson Terri Watkins told BuzzFeed News, "The warden under 
the protocol doesn't have a role in executions. That is why execution 
experience is immaterial to the hiring."

Under the current protocol, however, the warden has significant 
responsibilities overseeing executions. The warden, along with another 
corrections employee, chooses which execution team members are retained and 
which are replaced.

The 34-page execution protocol closes out by stating that "[t]he wardens of 
Oklahoma State Penitentiary and Mabel Bassett Correctional Center are 
responsible for compliance with" the procedures.

Previously, the warden had also received the execution drugs, and was supposed 
to verify their contents. In fact, the grand jury report singled out the 
previous warden, Anita Trammell, who stepped down during the investigation into 
how the wrong execution drug was used in the 2015 execution of Charles Warner.

Earlier, in 2014, Oklahoma took 45 minutes to execute Clayton Lockett in what 
Trammell described as "a bloody mess." After an investigation run by the 
Department of Public Safety, which reports to the governor, the state was 
allowed to carry out another execution.

The state changed the protocol, however, giving the warden fewer 
responsibilities.

This time, in January 2015, they used the wrong drug with Warner. The mistake 
only became public when the state nearly used the same wrong drug in the 
following scheduled execution, in September of that year.

This time, the investigation into execution mistakes was conducted by a grand 
jury. The grand jury report placed much of the blame at the feet of Trammell 
and former corrections director Robert Patton.

Before the grand jury, Trammell also tried to argue that it wasn't her 
responsibility.

"Warden [Trammell] further testified [s]he was not responsible for what 
happened at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary facility as it related to 
executions, despite being the Oklahoma State Penitentiary's warden, because it 
was the Director's job," the grand jury wrote.

"There are just some things you ask questions about, and there's some things 
that you don't," Trammell told the grand jury. "I never asked questions about 
the process" of getting the drugs.

Trammell also told the grand jury that "there were lots of things that took 
place at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary that wasn't in the policy."

The grand jury report found that "Warden [Trammell] did not do [her] job and, 
consequently, failed the Department and the State as a whole."

The grand jury also wrote that "the Execution Protocol explicitly states the 
Warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary is responsible for compliance with 
the Preparation and Administration of Chemical provisions of the Execution 
Protocol."

Royal will inherit Trammell's execution responsibilities, provided the protocol 
isn't changed.

"With the director's leadership and the rest of talented staff at the 
department, we will face challenges head-on to ensure the goals and mission of 
the facility and agency are met," Royal said in a statement. "I appreciate 
Director Allbaugh's confidence in me to lead the Oklahoma State Penitentiary."

None of the prisons Royal has worked at carried out executions. The Florida 
Department of Corrections did not respond to repeated questions about his 
experience, and the Indiana Department of Corrections, where Royal started his 
career, would not answer questions about its execution personnel.

Royal also spent time in Arizona, working at a minimum security private prison. 
Patton, the Oklahoma corrections director that resigned in the middle of the 
grand jury investigation, was the Division Director of the Arizona Department 
of Corrections while Royal was in Arizona. As such, Patton was overseeing a 
variety of things - including overseeing security assessments of the prison 
were Royal was warden.

The grand jury report noted that there was significant overlap between Arizona 
and Oklahoma's execution methods. Patton molded Oklahoma's protocol after 
Arizona's, and also hired the Arizona warden that ran the prison where a 2-hour 
execution occurred.

Allbaugh, the head of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, also has no 
execution-related experience. This is his 1st job in corrections, in fact. 
Allbaugh previously served as director of the Federal Emergency Management 
Agency under President George W. Bush.

When Allbaugh was selected earlier this year, the chair of the Board of 
Corrections, Kevin Gross, said it "might be interesting" to have someone 
without direct corrections experience run the prison system, according to the 
Tulsa World.

(source: BuzzFeed News)






NEBRASKA:

Too many innocents end up on death row


I was on the fence about the death penalty for many years, but then 
Northwestern University Law students did research and found so many on the 
Illinois death row were in fact innocent.

I'm now convinced that even one innocent person executed is one too many. With 
DNA and other tests, it seems we are hearing every few weeks about someone 
being released after decades on death row.

I don't want Nebraska in that kind of news story. I urge that we vote to retain 
the repeal of the Nebraska death penalty that the Legislature passed in 2015 by 
a wide margin.

Delores Maycock, Omaha

(source: Letter to the Editor, Omaha World-Herald)